The University of Southern California's "Individualized Library Services for Office Practice Project" funded by the National Library of Medicine is developing a relatively "non-invasive" system to study and identify drug prescribing educational needs of participating physicians and provide informational feedback. The physician's prescribing behavior is monitored by duplicate copies of prescriptions given in his office practice. In addition, the physician is requested to include the following information for each prescription: diagnosis; other patient problems; other patient medications; follow-up method; and patient's age, sex and weight. A faculty committee composed of physicians and clinical pharmacists then reviews the prescriptions to identify significant prescribing errors or consistent patterns suggesting educational intervention. After needs identification, the physician receives specific suggestions from the committee and appropriate medical literature or abstracts. The librarian is assisted in final selection of literature by the faculty committee. After this educational experience, the physician's prescribing is then reexamined to determine if changes have resulted. This method of continuing medical education is also being applied in a residency training program in family practice. The purpose is to establish good prescribing habits early in the physician's career. The program has also expanded into a community pharmacy setting. A community pharmacist is being trained and utilized to identify educational needs. The pharmacist will then provide feedback in conjunction with a clinical librarian to the physician based on the needs assessment.